| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"James Norris" |
| Date: |
01 Jul 2007 12:35:28 PM |
| Object: |
Construction of a Conscious Thing |
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-biological material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 01:09:17 PM |
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It is very important that people report Norris' dpam to Google.
They'll only act if a number of people complain.
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=u6QsdBMAAAAzk4AvRBsXQegVUW30nuGjWMj6vob75xS36mXc24h6ww
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 01:19:22 PM |
|
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On Jul 1, 7:09?pm, wrote:
It is very important that people report Norris' dpam to Google.
They'll only act if a number of people complain.
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=u6QsdBMAAAAzk4AvRBsX...
Thankyou, David, for your interest in the subject - no doubt you gave
the idea of 'conscious awareness of reality' considerable thought
before your cogent reply, which to be honest, seems to have drifted
off-topic somewhat. Let me remind you of the original posting:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-biological material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 01:27:08 PM |
|
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On Jul 1, 7:19 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:09?pm, wrote:
It is very important that people report Norris' dpam to Google.
They'll only act if a number of people complain.
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=u6QsdBMAAAAzk4AvRBsX...
Thankyou, David, for your interest in the subject - no doubt you gave
the idea of 'conscious awareness of reality' considerable thought
before your cogent reply
Indeed, I did. How about you? No, forget it, you aren't capable of
being conscious of reality.
Oh! And I've reported you again for spamming this newsgroup. be kind
enough to ***** and die, now
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 01:38:22 PM |
|
|
On Jul 1, 7:27?pm, wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:19 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:09?pm, wrote:
It is very important that people report Norris' dpam to Google.
They'll only act if a number of people complain.
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=u6QsdBMAAAAzk4AvRBsX...
Thankyou, David, for your interest in the subject - no doubt you gave
the idea of 'conscious awareness of reality' considerable thought
before your cogent reply
Indeed, I did. How about you? No, forget it, you aren't capable of
being conscious of reality.
Oh! And I've reported you again for spamming this newsgroup. be kind
enough to ***** and die, now
David doesn't seem to have read the post. Perhaps we can ignore his
boorishness and get on with a meaty discussion of this interesting
topic:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-biological material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 01:42:25 PM |
|
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On Jul 1, 7:38 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:27?pm, wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:19 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:09?pm, wrote:
It is very important that people report Norris' dpam to Google.
They'll only act if a number of people complain.
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=u6QsdBMAAAAzk4AvRBsX...
Thankyou, David, for your interest in the subject - no doubt you gave
the idea of 'conscious awareness of reality' considerable thought
before your cogent reply
Indeed, I did. How about you? No, forget it, you aren't capable of
being conscious of reality.
Oh! And I've reported you again for spamming this newsgroup. be kind
enough to ***** and die, now
David doesn't seem to have read the post. Perhaps we can ignore his
boorishness and get on with a meaty discussion of this interesting
topic:
Newsflash, buddy. Nobody finds your obsessive compulsive disorder
interesting. A psychiatrist might. Go and find one, you're pissing
everybody off.
P.S. Youve been reported again, this time to your own ISP.
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 01:55:56 PM |
|
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On Jul 1, 7:42?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
Newsflash, buddy. Nobody finds your obsessive compulsive disorder
interesting. A psychiatrist might. Go and find one, you're pissing
everybody off.
P.S. Youve been reported again, this time to your own ISP.
"Rev. Dr. Hugh Jarse", with your funny name which makes everyone
guffaw and laugh hysterically, can you try to stick to the point? No-
one's interested in your bad reports, we are trying to discuss the:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-biological material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 02:10:30 PM |
|
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On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:42?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
Newsflash, buddy. Nobody finds your obsessive compulsive disorder
interesting. A psychiatrist might. Go and find one, you're pissing
everybody off.
P.S. Youve been reported again, this time to your own ISP.
"Rev. Dr. Hugh Jarse", with your funny name which makes everyone
guffaw and laugh hysterically, can you try to stick to the point? No-
one's interested in your bad reports, we are trying to discuss the:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 03:40:12 PM |
|
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On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 04:07:18 PM |
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|
On Jul 1, 9:40 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
.
|
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 04:22:42 PM |
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On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 9:40 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
Returning to the topic;
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 05:00:00 PM |
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On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 9:40 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
It isn't an argument, it is a statement of fact. You have to be pretty
stupid not to understand it, and if you are new to Usenet, then you
will quickly find out that you are, and what it means. If you are not
new to Usenet, and you still do not realise that what you are doing
that is wrong, then you are a psychopath.Which is it?
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 05:16:21 PM |
|
|
On Jul 1, 11:00?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." wrote:
<snip>
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
It isn't an argument, it is a statement of fact. You have to be pretty
stupid not to understand it, and if you are new to Usenet, then you
will quickly find out that you are, and what it means. If you are not
new to Usenet, and you still do not realise that what you are doing
that is wrong, then you are a psychopath.Which is it?
I understand what a 'spamming troll' is, and l agree that you don't
need to provide a specific definition of the term. Returning to the
topic under discussion:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 05:46:59 PM |
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|
On Jul 1, 11:16 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:00?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." wrote:
<snip>
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
It isn't an argument, it is a statement of fact. You have to be pretty
stupid not to understand it, and if you are new to Usenet, then you
will quickly find out that you are, and what it means. If you are not
new to Usenet, and you still do not realise that what you are doing
that is wrong, then you are a psychopath.Which is it?
I understand what a 'spamming troll' is,
Then why the ***** are you spamming and trolling alt.atheism?
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
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| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 06:12:39 PM |
|
|
On Jul 1, 11:46?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:16 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:00?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." wrote:
<snip>
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
It isn't an argument, it is a statement of fact. You have to be pretty
stupid not to understand it, and if you are new to Usenet, then you
will quickly find out that you are, and what it means. If you are not
new to Usenet, and you still do not realise that what you are doing
that is wrong, then you are a psychopath.Which is it?
I understand what a 'spamming troll' is,
Then why the ***** are you spamming and trolling alt.atheism?- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
You're missing the point - your remarks are irrelevant. Definitions
of consciousness or anything else are unnecessary to the Construction,
understanding of which merely requires an understanding of the normal
usage of English words. I stopped using the word Mechanoid from
Friday's postings, because there is no accepted definition of it,
which causes mechanical translators a problem, and replaced it with
the word Thing, whose definition is irrelevant.
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
The constructed Thing would not be an evolved biological organism, or
a computer robot, but a device whose workings we don't understand
properly at present. Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its
original design and is now conscious? At any rate, the self-
constructed Thing can't be any less conscious than the original non-
conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "Gary L. Burnore" |
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| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 06:16:14 PM |
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On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:46:59 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.jarse@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:16 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:00?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." wrote:
<snip>
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
It isn't an argument, it is a statement of fact. You have to be pretty
stupid not to understand it, and if you are new to Usenet, then you
will quickly find out that you are, and what it means. If you are not
new to Usenet, and you still do not realise that what you are doing
that is wrong, then you are a psychopath.Which is it?
I understand what a 'spamming troll' is,
Then why the ***** are you spamming and trolling alt.atheism?
Spamming? Dipshit.
--
gburnore at DataBasix dot Com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How you look depends on where you go.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary L. Burnore | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
Official .sig, Accept no substitutes. | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ 0 1 7 2 3 / Ý³Þ 3 7 4 9 3 0 Û³
Black Helicopter Repair Services, Ltd.| Official Proof of Purchase
===========================================================================
.
|
|
|
|
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|
| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 05:05:51 PM |
|
|
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 9:40 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
Returning to the topic;
<snip>
By the way, It looks like everybody else has you killfiled.
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 05:21:38 PM |
|
|
On Jul 1, 11:05?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 9:40 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
Returning to the topic;
<snip>
By the way, It looks like everybody else has you killfiled.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Not to me it doesn't - perhaps your view of Usenet is restricted for
some reason? Try checking out the URL for the thread here, to which
several people have contributed in the last few hours:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/a70af8cd76a98bd6/286546d2be4bfb97?hl=en#286546d2be4bfb97
Returning once again to the topic under discussion:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its original design and is
now conscious? Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is
no way of determining whether or not anything or anybody is
conscious. But at any rate, the self-constructed thing would not be
less conscious than the non-conscious robot it began as.
.
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| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 05:50:14 PM |
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|
On Jul 1, 11:21 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:05?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 9:40 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
Returning to the topic;
<snip>
By the way, It looks like everybody else has you killfiled.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Not to me it doesn't - perhaps your view of Usenet is restricted for
some reason? Try checking out the URL for the thread here, to which
several people have contributed in the last few hours:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/a70a...
Not in alt.atheism. You're in very bad odour here because of your
recent activity, and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
.
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|
| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 06:22:10 PM |
|
|
On Jul 1, 11:50?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:21 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 11:05?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:22 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 10:07?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 9:40 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
On Jul 1, 8:10?pm, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 1, 7:55 pm, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
<snip>
Do you see anybody discussing this with you? Why do you imagine that
they want to?
In answer to your question, yes, some people discuss the topic with me. I
imagine they find it interesting to do so - why else would they?
(That's a 'rhetorical question', by the way, it requires no answer).
Anyway, let's move on from your question to the topic of the thread:
I'll start again, since you deleted all the relevant material in your
posting.
It wasn't relevant. The only thing that is relevant is that you are a
spamming troll, that nobody wants to discuss anything with.
Nonsense. Define 'spamming troll' or your argument is meaningless.
Returning to the topic;
<snip>
By the way, It looks like everybody else has you killfiled.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Not to me it doesn't - perhaps your view of Usenet is restricted for
some reason? Try checking out the URL for the thread here, to which
several people have contributed in the last few hours:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/a70a...
Not in alt.atheism. You're in very bad odour here because of your
recent activity, and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
You're a weird cookie, aren't you! I have been drawing attention to
some ideas of mine, posting many messages by hand to this newsgroup
(alt.atheism), amongst others which encourage postings about such
topics, and suggested several times that people discuss the ideas.
Spam is computer-generated postings of unwanted and unsolicited
emails, so my own contributions can't really be called spam. As for
trolling - are you suggesting that I'm trying to pick an argument with
a newbie or other potentially silly person with the intention of
making them look like an idiot? At least you realise I'm not a
newbie, anyway.
If you aren't interested in the topic, why don't you just ignore it?
But for those readers who are, here it is again:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
The constructed Thing would not be an evolved biological organism, or
a computer robot, but a device whose workings we don't understand
properly at present. Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its
original design and is now conscious? At any rate, the self-
constructed Thing can't be any less conscious than the original non-
conscious robot it began as.
.
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|
| User: "Gary L. Burnore" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 06:17:39 PM |
|
|
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:50:14 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.jarse@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
So being deliberately offensive is spamming? Dumbass.
--
gburnore at DataBasix dot Com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How you look depends on where you go.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary L. Burnore | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
Official .sig, Accept no substitutes. | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ 0 1 7 2 3 / Ý³Þ 3 7 4 9 3 0 Û³
Black Helicopter Repair Services, Ltd.| Official Proof of Purchase
===========================================================================
.
|
|
|
| User: "David Canzi -- non-mailable" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 07:00:29 PM |
|
|
In article <f69cmm$on1$2@blackhelicopter.databasix.com>,
Gary L. Burnore <gburnore@databasix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:50:14 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.jarse@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
So being deliberately offensive is spamming? Dumbass.
In a period of 7 hours Friday night and Saturday morning, Jim
Norris posted over 250 copies of the same article to alt.atheism,
mostly as followups to unrelated articles. *That's* what makes
him a spammer. (He has resumed regurgiposting today.)
He used 15 serially-named AOL accounts to do this:
JimNorris01@aol.com
JimNorris02@aol.com
JimNorris03@aol.com
jimnorris04@aol.com
jimnorris05@aol.com
JimNorris06@aol.com
JimNorris07@aol.com
JimNorris08@aol.com
JimNorris09@aol.com
JimNorris010@aol.com
JimNorris011@aol.com
JimNorris012@aol.com
JimNorris013@aol.com
JimNorris014@aol.com
JimNorris015@aol.com
*That* demonstrates it's deliberate. He prepared in advance to
abuse alt.atheism.
Rev. Jarse's only fault here was failing to write his words
unambiguously enough to prevent some chronic ***** from
carelessly or wilfully misinterpreting them.
--
David Canzi | Eternal truths come and go. |
.
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| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 07:30:38 PM |
|
|
On Jul 2, 1:00?am, (David Canzi -- non-
mailable) wrote:
In article <f69cmm$on...@blackhelicopter.databasix.com>,
Gary L. Burnore <gburn...@databasix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:50:14 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
So being deliberately offensive is spamming? Dumbass.
In a period of 7 hours Friday night and Saturday morning, Jim
Norris posted over 250 copies of the same article to alt.atheism,
mostly as followups to unrelated articles. *That's* what makes
him a spammer. (He has resumed regurgiposting today.)
He used 15 serially-named AOL accounts to do this:
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
jimnorri...@aol.com
jimnorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
*That* demonstrates it's deliberate. He prepared in advance to
abuse alt.atheism.
Rev. Jarse's only fault here was failing to write his words
unambiguously enough to prevent some chronic ***** from
carelessly or wilfully misinterpreting them.
--
David Canzi | Eternal truths come and go. |
Gosh you counted them! More than separate 250 postings in under 8
hours - WOW!! It was hard work but I really felt it was worth it.
But in what way was I 'abusing' the newsgroups? I thought they had
been set up specifically to discuss topics such as robots and
consciousness etc, which are welcomed. 'Spam' is the unsolicited and
unwanted automatic posting of email by computers, so my postings
weren't spam - more of an advert for the topic that would be a good
discussion subject for the groups, to draw it to the attention of the
readers of other threads. If you're interested in discussing spam,
you should probably try alt.spam or some similar Usenet newsgroup?
To revert once again to the original topic:
<bold>Construction of a Conscious Thing</bold>
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
The constructed Thing would not be an evolved biological organism, or
a computer robot, but a device whose workings we don't understand
properly at present. Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its
original design and is now conscious? At any rate, the self-
constructed Thing can't be any less conscious than the original non-
conscious robot it began as.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Gary L. Burnore" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 07:44:39 PM |
|
|
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:30:38 -0700, James Norris <JimNorris03@aol.com>
wrote:
On Jul 2, 1:00?am, (David Canzi -- non-
mailable) wrote:
In article <f69cmm$on...@blackhelicopter.databasix.com>,
Gary L. Burnore <gburn...@databasix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:50:14 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
So being deliberately offensive is spamming? Dumbass.
In a period of 7 hours Friday night and Saturday morning, Jim
Norris posted over 250 copies of the same article to alt.atheism,
mostly as followups to unrelated articles. *That's* what makes
him a spammer. (He has resumed regurgiposting today.)
He used 15 serially-named AOL accounts to do this:
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
jimnorri...@aol.com
jimnorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorri...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
JimNorris...@aol.com
*That* demonstrates it's deliberate. He prepared in advance to
abuse alt.atheism.
Rev. Jarse's only fault here was failing to write his words
unambiguously enough to prevent some chronic ***** from
carelessly or wilfully misinterpreting them.
--
David Canzi | Eternal truths come and go. |
Gosh you counted them! More than separate 250 postings in under 8
hours - WOW!! It was hard work but I really felt it was worth it.
But in what way was I 'abusing' the newsgroups? I thought they had
been set up specifically to discuss topics such as robots and
consciousness etc, which are welcomed. 'Spam' is the unsolicited and
unwanted automatic posting of email by computers, so my postings
weren't spam - more of an advert for the topic that would be a good
discussion subject for the groups, to draw it to the attention of the
readers of other threads. If you're interested in discussing spam,
you should probably try alt.spam or some similar Usenet newsgroup?
Email spam and USENet spam are different. If you're posting the same
thing over and over, it's entirely possible to reach a BI of 20 or
more, in which case your posts become cancellable spam.
Doesn't mean they're not assholes. If you're spamming, you should
stop now. Before the non-kooks notice.
--
gburnore at DataBasix dot Com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How you look depends on where you go.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary L. Burnore | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
Official .sig, Accept no substitutes. | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ 0 1 7 2 3 / Ý³Þ 3 7 4 9 3 0 Û³
Black Helicopter Repair Services, Ltd.| Official Proof of Purchase
===========================================================================
.
|
|
|
| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 08:49:28 PM |
|
|
On Jul 2, 1:44=EF=BF=BDam, Gary L. Burnore <gburn...@databasix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:30:38 -0700, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com>
wrote:
Gosh you counted them! =A0More than separate 250 postings in under 8
hours - WOW!! =A0It was hard work but I really felt it was worth it.
But in what way was I 'abusing' the newsgroups? =A0I thought they had
been set up specifically to discuss topics such as robots and
consciousness etc, which are welcomed. =A0 'Spam' is the unsolicited and
unwanted automatic posting of email by computers, so my postings
weren't spam - more of an advert for the topic that would be a good
discussion subject for the groups, to draw it to the attention of the
readers of other threads. =A0 If you're interested in discussing spam,
you should probably try alt.spam or some similar Usenet newsgroup?
Email spam and USENet spam are different. =A0If you're posting the same
thing over and over, it's entirely possible to reach a BI of 20 or
more, in which case your posts become cancellable spam.
Doesn't mean they're not assholes. =A0If you're spamming, you should
stop now. =A0Before the non-kooks notice.
--
gburnore at DataBasix dot Com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
--
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 How you look depends on where you=
go.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
--
Gary L. Burnore =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 | =A0=DD=DB=
=B3=BA=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=B3=B3=DD=DB=BA=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=B3=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=
=DD=B3=DD=DD=DB=B3
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 | =A0=DD=DB=B3=BA=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=B3=B3=DD=DB=BA=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=B3=
=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=B3=DD=DD=DB=B3
Official .sig, Accept no substitutes. | =A0=DD=DB=B3=BA=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=
=B3=B3=DD=DB=BA=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=B3=DD=B3=DE=B3=BA=DD=B3=DD=DD=DB=B3
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 | =A0=DD=DB 0 1 7 2 3 / =DD=B3=DE 3 7 4 9 3 0 =DB=B3
Black Helicopter Repair Services, Ltd.| =A0 =A0 Official Proof of Purchase
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D
The Breibart spam index applies mainly to cross-postings, but I was
only replying to the messages in this newsgroup, so the BI was low.
How does it rate the crap at the end of your own postings, BTW?
Anyway, enough about spam, what about someone else's thoughts on the
subject of:
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment for a while.
Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel, and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as the programmed
mechanical device we started off with, which we knew to be non-
conscious, and we can ignore them. We can also ignore robots which
have replaced themselves with biological material which was already
conscious, because they are not the sort of 'constructed
consciousness' that we are interested in.
The robots we are interested in are those which have managed to
replace all their constituent components, including their original
computer hardware and software, with non-conscious material that they
have picked up from the environment, but are still functioning like
the original robots. The random self-construction may have led to a
strange wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic
bands held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of
reality contained in the vibrational processes occurring in millions
of twig-twanged elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural
environment apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it
picks up. It is of course extremely unlikely that such a thing, or
any similar 'randomly constructed' functioning being, would ever
occur, but the possibility that millions of monkeys randomly operating
typewriters would produce the occasional Shakespeare sonnet is
similarly unlikely. However, in either case, if you started with
sufficient non-conscious robots, or if you left the monkeys typing
long enough, they would eventually achieve the objective. The
resulting Things, whose workings and principles of operation might be
a mystery to us, have like ourselves, been created out of material
from the environment, so they might be conscious, as we are.
The constructed Thing would not be an evolved biological organism, or
a computer robot, but a device whose workings we don't understand
properly at present. Perhaps the resultant being has improved on its
original design and is now conscious? At any rate, the self-
constructed Thing can't be any less conscious than the original non-
conscious robot it began as.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Gary L. Burnore" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
01 Jul 2007 07:19:37 PM |
|
|
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 00:00:29 +0000 (UTC),
(David Canzi -- non-mailable) wrote:
In article <f69cmm$on1$2@blackhelicopter.databasix.com>,
Gary L. Burnore <gburnore@databasix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:50:14 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.jarse@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
So being deliberately offensive is spamming? Dumbass.
In a period of 7 hours Friday night and Saturday morning, Jim
Norris posted over 250 copies of the same article to alt.atheism,
mostly as followups to unrelated articles. *That's* what makes
him a spammer. (He has resumed regurgiposting today.)
He used 15 serially-named AOL accounts to do this:
JimNorris01@aol.com
JimNorris02@aol.com
JimNorris03@aol.com
jimnorris04@aol.com
jimnorris05@aol.com
JimNorris06@aol.com
JimNorris07@aol.com
JimNorris08@aol.com
JimNorris09@aol.com
JimNorris010@aol.com
JimNorris011@aol.com
JimNorris012@aol.com
JimNorris013@aol.com
JimNorris014@aol.com
JimNorris015@aol.com
*That* demonstrates it's deliberate. He prepared in advance to
abuse alt.atheism.
Trolls don't spam. Spammers do.
Rev. Jarse's only fault here was failing to write his words
unambiguously enough to prevent some chronic ***** from
carelessly or wilfully misinterpreting them.
Only fault? Not. According to Jarse, it's spam because it's
deliberately offensive. Best if you speak for him from now on.
--
gburnore at DataBasix dot Com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How you look depends on where you go.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary L. Burnore | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
Official .sig, Accept no substitutes. | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
| ÝÛ 0 1 7 2 3 / Ý³Þ 3 7 4 9 3 0 Û³
Black Helicopter Repair Services, Ltd.| Official Proof of Purchase
===========================================================================
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN." |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
02 Jul 2007 02:10:35 AM |
|
|
On Jul 2, 12:17 am, Gary L. Burnore <gburn...@databasix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:50:14 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
So being deliberately offensive is spamming? Dumbass.
--
No, spamming is being deliberately offensive, that's unambiguous
enough if you've got a functioning brain. I think you have, you were
just trying to be cute. You failed.
Anyway, just to put you in the picture, the history behind this whole
furore is this: Every time somebody responds to Norris in any manner
other than to engage directly in his so-called discussion of robotics
and consciousness, he just reposts his original deliberately half-
assed attempt at pontification - ad nauseam. That repetition is, to
any intents and purposes, spamming, and any attempts to wax pedantic
about what spamming is are part of the problem here.
The bottom line is that Norris is deliberately being a *****, and I
have the right to point out to him that this is what he is doing.
.
|
|
|
| User: "James Norris" |
|
| Title: Re: Construction of a Conscious Thing |
02 Jul 2007 04:00:36 AM |
|
|
On Jul 2, 8:10=EF=BF=BDam, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
On Jul 2, 12:17 am, Gary L. Burnore <gburn...@databasix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:50:14 -0700, "The Rev Dr. Hugh Jarse NLAHN."
<hugh.ja...@heathens.org.uk> wrote:
and if you do understand what a spamming troll is,
you were being deliberately offensive.
So being deliberately offensive is spamming? =A0 Dumbass.
--
No, spamming is being deliberately offensive, that's unambiguous
enough if you've got a functioning brain. I think you have, you were
just trying to be cute. You failed.
Anyway, just to put you in the picture, the history behind this whole
furore is this: Every time somebody responds to Norris in any manner
other than to engage directly in his so-called discussion of robotics
and consciousness, he just reposts his original deliberately half-
assed attempt at pontification - ad nauseam. That repetition is, to
any intents and purposes, spamming, and any attempts to wax pedantic
about what spamming is are part of the problem here.
The bottom line is that Norris is deliberately being a *****, and I
have the right to point out to him that this is what he is doing.
I've never heard of anyone deliberately being a ***** before - I doubt
whether such a thing is physically possible. Do you mean ***** as a
colloquialism for a spammer, where 'being deliberately offensive' is
your definition of spamming? From my point of view you are
deliberately being a nuisance on this thread, where myself and other
people would otherwise be able to have an discussion.
What is the punishment for 'being deliberately offensive' do you
think? If the offence is serious, it might be a police matter.
'Causing a disturbance in a public place', or 'Maliciously intending
to damage intellectual property' is the sort of thing that you might
be able to take to court. You should go down to you local police
station and report it if you think you have any evidence of criminal
or other illegal infringement of your rights as a human being,
otherwise you could see a lawyer maybe. There's no point just
complaining to your ISP, they aren't likely to take up your case for
you.
Anyway, to return to the subject of the thread: do you think the
following construction would work? -
Construction of a Conscious Thing
The construction is independent of any specific definition of
consciousness. It shows how consciousness might be produced from non-
conscious devices.
Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teacups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the env | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
